You’ll hear many people say that voting is your civic duty. It is your one job to make our government work. And that is all true – but you might not think about everything that was sacrificed when exercising your vote. It is very appealing not to wait in a long line at the FAC or your nearby polling place. You also might not want to even waste your time registering to vote–but those are very bad reasons not to get involved.
Personal motives aside, there is a powerful historical reason why women should vote. If you are struggling with the motivation to get out and vote in our future runoff primary and general elections, there is one movie you should watch. It will put a fire under your belly and help you understand why you shouldn’t take you right to vote for granted.
Iron Jawed Angels is the story of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, who have just returned from England and want to bring voting rights to women in the United States. They join the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and want to be a little more aggressive in their stance on suffrage. NAWSA isn’t here for it, so they break off and form the National Women’s Party. They go through trials and tribulations, involving staging a parade, being hurt, getting arrested, and so much more.
It is hard to spoil the ending if you live in the U.S; we know that women now have the right to vote – but the story is extremely inspiring. You’ll get to a part of the movie where the women are arrested for picketing a president during war (this was illegal at the time) and then they decide to go on hunger strikes in prison. The scenes of the wardens force-feeding them are horrific but necessary to understand why you must vote. We have never lived in a time where we had our rights completely negated like these women did. We have always had the right to vote, but by watching this film you can see how terrible it was to have no say in the government governing you; and that is really powerful.
Having the right to vote is a privilege and if you choose not to vote, you are almost slapping Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the face. They along with so many other women (and men) fought for your right to vote. So do it!
If you need a kick in the butt to register for the midterm elections (coming up in November) go watch Iron Jawed Angels. As a bonus to watching the film, it has a great soundtrack, good clothes and wonderful actors.